With the rapid development of the Internet and the popularization of the large-screen multi-functional mobile phones, a large number of mobile data multimedia services and various high bandwidth multimedia services appear, such as video conference, television broadcast, video on demand, video ads, online education, interactive games, etc. All these mobile data multimedia services and various high bandwidth multimedia services not only meet the increasing service requirements of mobile users but also bring new service increase points for mobile operators. These mobile data multimedia services and various high bandwidth multimedia services require a plurality of users to be able to simultaneously receive the same data, and as compared to common data services, they have features such as large data amount, long duration time, and sensitive delay and so on.
In order to effectively use mobile network resources, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) proposes a multimedia broadcast and multicast service (MBMS), and this MBMS service is a technology of transmitting data from a data source to a plurality of targets, which achieves the share of network (comprising a core network and an access network) resources and improves the utilization rate of the network resources (especially air interface resources). The MBMS service defined by the 3GPP not only can achieve the multicast and broadcast of message class with pure text and low rate but also can achieve the broadcast and multicast of high speed multimedia services and provide various rich video, audio and multimedia services, which undoubtedly conforms to the development trend of the future mobile data and provides a better service prospect for the development of the 3rd Generation (3G) mobile communication.
Currently, the MBMS service is introduced into the Long Term Evolution (LTE) release 9 (R9) system, and it is optimized in the LTE release 10 (R10). The MBMS service is realized by the co-transmission of the control signaling (also referred to as MBMS control signaling) and user data (also referred to as the MBMS service) in the system. In this case, the control signaling will notify a receiving terminal (such as a terminal, a User Equipment (UE)), of corresponding control parameters to direct the UE to receive the MBMS service in which the UE is interested at the corresponding position, i.e. the corresponding user data. Such MBMS control signaling (control information, comprising configuration information about the MBMS service and so on) is transmitted in the LTE system via a multicast control channel (MCCH), and the MBMS service is transmitted via a multicast traffic channel (MTCH).
In particular, the MBMS control signaling (i.e. MCCH information) transmitted on the logic channel MCCH mainly contains: the multicast resource of the MBMS over a Single Frequency Network (MBSFN) area corresponding to the MCCH information, all the ongoing MBMS services (or referred to as started MBMS services, or referred to as session started MBMS services) in the MBSFN area and the configuration and property information about the ongoing MBMS services; and what is borne on the logic channel MTCH is MBMS service data, and usually the MBMS service corresponds to the MTCH, for example, MBMS service 1 corresponds to MTCH1, MBMS service 2 corresponds to MTCH2, that is, the UE reading the MBMS service expresses the same meaning as the UE reading the MTCH. In the network, the MBMS service is uniquely identified with a Temporary Mobile Group Identity (TMGI), and each MBMS service has its corresponding TMGI, which is convenient for a network side and the UE to identify.
In this case, the MCCH information corresponding to the MBSFN area will be transmitted according to a certain rule (repetition period and modification period), particularly as shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of sending MCCH information about an MBSFN area in the related art, and as shown in FIG. 1, the MCCH information will be transmitted once or many times repeatedly within the modification period (it is transmitted for 3 times repeatedly in FIG. 1); the interval between the repeated transmission of the MCCH information is referred to as MCCH repetition period; usually, the first transmission of the MCCH information is referred to as first transmission within the MCCH modification period, the transmission within each repetition period is referred to as repeated transmission of MCCH information, and the repeatedly transmitted MCCH information is identical to the content of the MCCH information transmitted for the first time; the MCCH modification period indicates that the contents of the transmitted MCCH information can be different within different MCCH modification periods; as shown in FIG. 1, the content of the (n+1)th MCCH modification period is different from that of the nth period (in FIG. 1, oblique line blocks and blank blocks are used to represent different contents of the MCCH information); and it needs to be noted that within the MCCH modification period, the content of the MCCH information shall not be changed and can only be transmitted repeated according to the repetition period. The content of the MCCH information is only allowed to be changed at the boundary of the beginning of the MCCH modification period, that is, the change of the MCCH information can only occur at the first transmission of the MCCH information within the MCCH modification period, which is also referred to as MCCH change time. Such regulation ensures the consistency of the transmission of the MCCH information in the MBSFN area (multi-eNB).
The configuration parameters of the MCCH repetition period and modification period are configured by the network side, and the network side sends the configuration parameters to the UE via the System Information Block 13 (SIB13) in the BCCH; the UE can learn the configuration parameters of the MCCH repetition period and modification period by reading the SIB13 in the BCCH, and the UE can read the MCCH information at the corresponding position.
Regarding in the related art that the control signaling and user data in the MBSFN area will be transmitted synchronously using the MBSFN technology in the unit of cell or eNB (the object is to enable the UE to obtain the corresponding combination gain upon reception). The MBSFN technology requires each cell in the MBSFN area to send the same data content on the same time frequency resources, which requires carrying out uniform scheduling and planning on each cell. Currently, a Multi-cell/multicast Coordination Entity (MCE) element is used to carry out uniform scheduling and planning on radio resources, which in particular can make reference to the international standards 3GPP 36.300 v910.
FIG. 2 is a diagram of an MBMS architecture in a long term evolution (LTE) system in the related art. As shown in FIG. 2, in the current LTE system, network elements relevant to the MBMS have eNB, MCE, MBMS gateway, Broadcast Multicast Service Center (BM-SC), and Mobility Management Entity (MME), wherein the BM-SC is used as a network element of session start, session stop, session update, or MBMS service data provision; the MBMS GW sends the MBMS service data to the corresponding eNB via an M1 interface; the MBMS GW sends the control plane information (such as Session Start Request message, Session Stop Request message, Session Updated Request message) generated by the BM-SC to the MME; the MME is entirely used as a forwarding network element and forwards the control plane information sent by the MBMS GW to the MCE via an M3 interface; and the MCE sends the corresponding control plane information to the corresponding eNB via an M2 interface, and by means of these processing, the eNB will obtain the MBMS service data and the corresponding control plane information. Generally, the control plane information sent by the MME to the eNB via the M2 interface comprises: a session start request message, a session stop request message, a session updated request message, an MBMS scheduling information message, a reset message, an M2 setup request message, and corresponding messages sent to the MCE via the M2 interface, such as session start response message, session stop response message, session updated response message, MBMS scheduling information response message, reset acknowledge message, and M2 interface setup response message. The above signaling or process between the MCE and the eNB being borne on the M2 interface is referred to as M2 application protocol, i.e. M2AP.
It can be known from the above contents that the MBMS service will be transmitted within the entire MBSFN area. For further optimizing the transmission of the MBMS service, the industries have introduced a UE uplink feedback mechanism, and in particular, the uplink feedback mechanism is mainly applied to the network side to acquire the number of the users that are interested in/receiving each MBMS service (or the number of UEs); the network side optimizes the transmission of the MBMS service by acquiring the number of the users, for example, deactivate (or referred to as not transmit) the MBMS service with less number of users that are interested in/receiving the same, and activate (or referred to as transmit) the MBMS service with more number of the users that are interested in/receiving the same. In order to learn the number of the UEs (or if any) that are interested in/receiving a certain MBMS service, the network side can enable the UE that is interested in/receiving a certain MBMS service to carry out uplink feedback by sending a counting command to tell the UE of the current receiving state of the MBMS. The network side can apply the information acquired by way of uplink feedback (i.e. how many UE are interested in/receiving a certain MBMS service) to the activation or deactivation operation of the MBMS service, and in other words, the network side can decide whether (activate) or not (deactivate) to send the MBMS service via the air interface according to the information acquired by way of uplink feedback.
However, after the UE has reported the MBMS service which the UE is interested in or receives to the eNB via the air interface (from UE to eNB), how the network performs activation/deactivation control on the MBMS service according to the received report information, there is no feasible implementation in the related art.